Today's Venti Caramel Macchiato (No Foam Edition)

I know it's been a while, but are you sure you're not . . . projecting?

In case you're wondering, I'm currently listening to: Robin Hood OST, by Marc Streitenfeld. It's a great soundtrack. Shout-out to Sam for alerting me to its awesomeness.

So, amidst the five-billion or so (rough estimate) republican primary debates, coupled with my hatred and bitterness toward the political system as a whole, my apathy in regards either party, and my relative insanity in regards anything remotely resembling a politically acceptable viewpoint, I have started a blog to talk about politics, economics, and other related issues, so that you can all be spared my amateur op-ed-itizing. You can find it here. I promise it'll at least be entertaining, and possibly borderline offensive to some of you. I cannot, however, promise cookies. You can all thank me later.

As always, I seem to be between shows to watch via netflix, hulu, or whatever. I think the problem might be the fact that I like to have shows I haven't seen before on in the background while I do other things.... needless to say, I go through shows like a 

squirrel on crack (quite an image, eh?). But I do have a new recommendation for ya'll. It's called Spy, and it's a new, quirky british show that hulu presents every friday. There are parts of it that I don't care for (Marcus can be really irritating), but overall, the show is fun and entertaining. Also, if you haven't jumped onto the IT Crowd train yet, get a move on! It's on Netflix streaming. . . so you really have no excuse.

Thanksgiving is coming up very quickly, and for those of us who love the holiday season, it is a time of excitement and anticipation and too many decorations. Of course, this means that for me, I plan to sit alone and catch up on some light reading. Honestly, though. I am looking forward to this Thanksgiving. It's going to be a very fun time. It's the fifth annual Tangentine Cup, in which my friends all come over and compete for the right to claim rugby supremacy and a trophy for the next year before feasting on a large breakfast of delicious food prepared by my parents. Great times. And this year, Becca is coming to enjoy the show. I'm super Pumped! In addition to this, there is the always wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, and the important Packers-Lions game. It's going to be more fun than a room full of chimpanzees debating the merits of rhetoric with Winston Churchill, which, actually, is something I would watch.

I recently did something I have never done before: I bought a video game the day it came out. Now, I'm normally a huge stickler for waiting for the prices to come down so that I don't have to feel slighted when I realize the game really doesn't seem worth the 59.99 I payed for it. I made an exception, however, for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. My reasoning was thusly: I really enjoyed the previous Modern Warfare installments, and knew that by the time it fell to within what I considered the "buyable range" I would be at the tail end of the game's life cycle, and with a primarily online game, this is only about a year to year and a half. Add to this, I know that my time to play video games will significantly decrease when I have actual things to do in the evenings (something that is lacking right now), I figured I've give video gaming one last big hurrah. This is not to say that I will not play video games again, but that I realize that my current mode of becoming fanatical about a game or two and playing it in every spare moment is a non-possibility. I also think there are wiser things to spend money on when one is married than a video game one will probably not have enough time to devote to it to be actually good (which unfortunately is my modus operandi for any endeavor. . . ). So far, I am very happy with MW3. It's been a very fun experience getting into a game at the very start.

Also, thanks to all of you who have been praying for me. I am doing much better since my last major post, and your thoughts and prayers meant (and mean) a lot. 

Until next time, be careful you don't get slurry...

Today's Cup O' Rosy

And to think, you could be bending elements . . . .

So, I had a really, quite long post all written out, and I was quite proud of it, having spent a good hour on it, and I went to publish it, and it didn't publish, and I went to save it, and it took my to a different page, and erased my data.......so, now I'm pretty pissed at blogger. I'll try to see if I can regurgitate what I had from memory, though I'm certain it won't be as good. Sorry ya'll! new post coming soon, though.

Today's Lukewarm Cup of Coffee.

I finally came to terms a week or two ago with the fact that I was moderately depressed. This doesn't happen often for me, so the realization was rather striking, and it's not something I relish. I generally feel as though I have a fairly good read on what's going on in my head, and with those pesky little "emotion" things.... But alas, this is not always the case, and I guess that the ending of the season, being away from my fiance, and having all of my friends around here go back to school for the year combined into a perfect storm of boredom-feeding depression. I'm feeling a bit better now, perhaps due to the relapse of summer-like weather, but I shall most likely need to fight to keep this issue under control for the rest of the winter.
Perhaps due to the above-mentioned depression, or  even simply coinciding with it, I have lost just about all interest in anything. It's slightly terrifying. I don't want to play piano, or even really music at all. I don't want to read or do anything active. Surprisingly, I don't even want to play video games. When I get home, I just want to veg in front of the television for a few hours and then go to sleep....unfortunately, I also have been having trouble falling alseep, despite the fact that I'm exhausted like all the time. This has led to one of the more distinctive spirals of: Get up, feel like crap, have caffeine to wake up, work, come home exhausted, not be able to sleep until 2am, get up at six feeling more like crap, have caffeine to wake up, eat badly because you're late and feel like crap, work, etc. And the more I feel like crap, the more I eat like crap, and the more I have no desire to do anything. It sucks because intellectually, I want to enjoy these things. I even manage to be engaging intellectually all day at work in my head, but when it comes to actually doing so when I have time, I have no motivation. Obviously, this is better than it was (I'm writing on here...), but it's still there as an undercurrent. And I'm still having trouble sleeping. But onto brighter things:

Some fun new links:
lewrockwell.com
mises.org
They've been keeping me busy for a while now, and in the case of mises.org, supplying me with podcasts to listen to while I work. In any case, good articles in both, and lewrockwell's blog is filled with a lot of good day-to-day posts about everything from philosophy of human action, to economics, to history, to politics, to why you should, as a good American, be for drug legalization and against all and any taxes.

I'm considering starting a blog for short, politically and economically centered posts, mostly just to stop boring all of you with that stuff.... but because I do have a decent amount to say regarding those topics, it might be a good "out" for me so as to get it off my chest. Should be fun.

Planning the next section/chapter in my RPG for next summer is going to be fun. Now if only I would work on it when I have the time...

Watched "The Social Network" last night. Wasn't planning on watching it, but I was having trouble getting to sleep, and it was on Starz. My thoughts: Surprisingly interesting and good. Jesse Eisenberg carried the show, and was brilliant. Aaron Sorkin's dialog, as usual, made for an enjoyable watch, even though it is a very different type of production than his usual. One thought I had was this; how much of "Network" was true to life, and how much was Sorkin Storytelling Magic? I'm certainly not predisposed to like Zuckerberg, but Network made him out to be an especially dynamic villain, who manages both fascinate and annoy. It's good film, but how much can we infer from it about the reality of the matter?

Beernerdiness: Found a really enjoyable brew recently. New Belgium's 1554 Enlightened Black Ale. Not quite the usual micro brew that I try to support, but I find that I generally really like New Belgium's products. And 1554 is superb. Refreshing, crisp, with little aftertaste while still remaining smooth and with a hint of molasses. Supposedly from a medieval recipe, it tastes a bit like an oatmeal stout but goes down like an ale. Delicious.